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Oklahoma City, Tulsa to hold joint city council meeting

Oklahoma City and Tulsa are set to hold a joint city council meeting Thursday in Tulsa. It is thought to be the first joint meeting of the councils.

BY MICHAEL KIMBALL mkimball@opubco.com •
Published: September 1, 2012

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An invitation for dinner at the governor's house led to what is thought to be the first joint meeting of the Oklahoma City and Tulsa city councils.

The city councils meet Thursday in Tulsa for a formal open meeting.

The dinner at the Governor's Mansion was earlier this year, and momentum for the meeting quickly gathered.

“Governor Fallin invited the mayor and councils from both communities to have dinner at the mansion just to kind of open up dialogue,” said Debi Martin, the Oklahoma City Council's chief of staff. “They thought, ‘You know, we really ought to be talking to each other more.'”

Regional concerns

Items on the agenda include regional transportation, joint legislative goals and regionalization.

“We just chose some general areas that would allow that conversation to begin on topics that we're both certainly very interested in,” Martin said.

Some members of the Oklahoma City Council have advocated strongly for cities to ask the state to allow them more local control of election spending disclosure rules, which is likely to be among the more high-profile legislative topics to come up at the meeting.